The final word on “the record” is uttered by the mods. You might recall the great pains they went to in explaining to you, Sam, and Scylla that december was indeed banned for trolling in that thread. If that little fact inconveniently conflicts with the conservative-persecution fantasy you’re still nursing, too fuckin’ bad. Deal with it.
Beliefs are falsifiable (“Ice cream is made from rat fetuses”); opinions are not (“Rat fetuses taste delicious.” Although I didn’t learn that in those exact words in the second grade, I recall worksheets in the second grade in which we were required to distinguish opinions from beliefs. Maybe I just went to a better school system.
Actually, it is an expression of a belief.
Given that I was outraged, I think your ability to falsify my assertion is tenuous at best. But have at it: on what basis do you claim my assertion was false?
“Egregious” falls under the category of opinion, inasmuch as it’s a value judgment. I’m starting to pity you here.
I figure even you don’t believe you’re nonpartisan, so I can ignore this as a knowingly false statement on your part.
At last, a true statement, in both parts! You didn’t realize it, and I didn’t fall for his thread so hard. Don’t believe me? Go check out the thread for yourself.
Daniel
OK, so where is this infamous “President Lying” thread?
I did a search for it and got nothing. Was it so egregious that it had to be expunged from the record? If that was the case, my appetite is whetted even more.
Okay, I mulled this one over while in the dentist chair and came to a notion of an idea of a premise:
Good Threads: Ones that result in the original poster and the respondents reaching a sort of parity.
Examples
[ul][li]A factual question in GQ, which is typically the OP asking for information. The respondents spit back info, some of it relevant, some of it not, but at the end, the OP and the respondents have acheived some degree of equality of knowledge.[/li][li]A fair political question in GD. Naturally, there will not be agreement on a controversial issue, but it becomes clear that every has an honest (if misguided in the view of others) opinion on the subject.[/li][li]An aesthetic question in the Café. Eventually, it becomes clear that everyone can have an honest opinion on a particular book, TV show, movie etc.[/li][li]An “outrageous” problem in the Pit, i.e. “I’m describing a situtation that pisses me off!” Responses are typically in agreement or that the situation is not really that outrageous at all.[/ul][/li]
Bad Threads: Ones in whch the original posters seeks superiority over the respondents.
Examples
[ul][li]A GD thread which starts with a knowing falsehood about a controversial and seeks to fool respondents into reacting to the falsehood.[/li][li]A GD thread that starts with deliberate incoherence, forcing respondents to try to figure out jsut what the hell the OP is talking about. Also, threads that start with the smirking premise “I know something you don’t know”, in an attempt to be the center of a guessing game. There are riddles and trivia threads that are okay, as long as the answers are objectively verifiable and not ridiculously obscure.[/li][li]A GD thread that starts with a premise and defines anyone who disagrees with the premise is evil, a Nazi, or an evil Nazi. Also threads where the OP forces or tries to force false dichotomies: “I’m opposed to the death penalty” and then to a respondent “I suppose you prefer the government shoot people at random, don’t you?”[/li][li]A Pit thread that… well, most Pit threads are lame anyway.[/li][li]Any thread that starts with the phrase “forced down our throats” (implying martyrdom), just because I’m getting tired of hearing that cliché[/ul][/li]
So, any thread that starts with the OP’s assumption that he is better than the respondents (or can prove he is better than the respondents) is by this definition a bad thread. The mods can weed these out pretty easily (as could any discerning board member) and if sometimes they whack a sarcastic thread, well… start your thread less ambiguously next time, stupid.
While I agree that the “Gotcha ya” test is usually a pretty good sign, I think there are even exceptions to that rule that don’t fall under trolling.
In a GD thread a while back, someone posted about how bothered they were by a specific type of rebuttal. I then posted an example and asked them if this was the type of rebuttal that bothered them, to which they responded that it was. I then posted the link to the thread in which they had used that exact text as a rebuttal.
In this particular case, had my first post been simply a link to their original text, based on past behavior, I assumed I would see all sorts of weasely justification. This method allowed me to avoid that.
It was definitely a trap, but I found it to be a valid use of one under the circumstances. Other opinions on it may vary, of course.
Note that you were not, at least according to this description of the events, anywhere dishonest in your behavior. It’s the dishonesty that I think fatally poisons debate, not the trap itself. Giving someone the rope to hang themselves is hunkydory as long as you don’t lie about the rope.
Daniel
Trolling is hard to pin down. The fact is that we don’t always know it when we see it. Someone who disagrees with us is much more likely to appear to be making statements with some irrational intent to elicit an angry response, simply for enjoyment. He might really mean to express his own distaste for the opposite opinion (yours). While I would love to believe that only fools and demagogues believe differently than I do, that stance might require better support in reality to stand alone as a counter argument.
The trolls from your own side of an argument are much easier to spot. The thing is, you have to be willing to expose them too, or what you are really complaining about is folks on the other side being mean, and probably specifically, being mean to you.
Tris
“Trolling” is the expression of any opinion with which I do not agree. Which part of this do you not understand? 
Pretty interesting responses. There does indeed seem to be a broad spectrum of opinion on both what trolling is and how bad it might be. Tris makes the excellent point that it is wide open to interpretation, and is usually colored by our biases. But Elvis makes the valid point that, objectively, what it is and how bad it is is determined by the mods. (I would add the point that it is possibly the case that one mod differs from another.) And I can understand why a mod wouldn’t want to swoop in and volunteer a definition of trolling since the ambiguity is to their advantage in terms of subjective interpretation. I used to more or less scrutinize moderator decisions until I became one myself. After that, I backed off — way off. And even now, I’m not really inviting a criticism of mods per se, but a discussion among all members — mods included — about trolling.
I’m glad that the topic of deception came up because that’s one of those things that, in my opinion, ought not to be any overwhelming factor in determining trollness unless the deception is expressly for the purpose of raising a stink and drawing attention to the poster. Debate really is a form of civilized war, and all war is deception. Does this mean that people should be allowed to lie? Well, they already are allowed to lie in Great Debates. Liar, in fact, is one ad hominem that is excepted from the rules (as, I believe, it was Gaudere who explained) whenever it can be objectively determined that in fact a lie was told. I know of no instance in which lying was cited by a moderatorial warning.
Daniel makes the point that there’s no room for rhetorical trickery in Great Debates, and that it taints the whole forum. Depending on the sort of trickery, I would agree. However, even perfectly straightforward analytical proof is no guarantee of referential integrity in that forum. Suppose, for example, that I use Peano’s axioms to prove that 1 + 1 = 2. There is absolutely nothing to stop responses that are ridiculous but heartfelt — everything from calling something a logical fallacy when it isn’t, to pointing out that key terms like “successor” are undefined, to declaring that the proof is nothing more than rhetorial magic. Clearly, such responses are objectively either dishonest or ignorant.
As I said in the OP, although the intention of a troll is to raise a stink, affirmation of the consequent would be a logical fallacy. That is, it is not the case that raising a stink necessarily means that there was an intent to troll. I cannot ever recall, for example, a post from Desmostylus to me that was intended for any purpose other than pissing me off, but since they don’t (any longer) piss me off, they can’t be trolling by my own definition. Affirmation of the consequent is a logical fallacy, but modus tollens definitely is not.
So, quite honestly, I’m less sure now than when I opened the thread of the accuracy of my own definition. I’d appreciate more discussion and responses. If we, as a community, can stumble upon a reasonable consensus about the matter, it actually would benefit the mods since we, in our mutual knowledge and understanding, can enforce our view upon others simply by refusing to engage trolls. Engagement is, after all, their fuel. And maybe therein lies something about it that might shed some light.
Trolling? Who gives a fuck!
I can play the Peano.
I could not disagree more with this, and with the conclusions you draw from it. If you believe that, it goes a long way to explaining why I so often despise your debating techniques.
Debate is not, or should not, be a type of civilized war: it should be a chance to learn the heartfelt beliefs and values of those whose beliefs and values are different from one’s own, to learn the basis for their beliefs and values, and to evaluate that basis according to one’s own beliefs and values. As such, it’s a process that benefits the debater, and it’s a process that’s tainted by dishonesty. If it’s just a process of trying to win, it has at least as much in common with masturbation as with war. At least in war, there’s some prize for winning.
I said that I applaud the mods for the extent to which they police deception in great debates. If it were feasible, I’d rather them police it more heavily.
[emphasis added]
It is a mistake to conflate these two. Ignorance can be fought. Dishonesty is an corruption endemic to the liar, and can only be excised from the boards.
Daniel
I could not disagree more ! Are you sure you’re telling the truth? No prize as a result of musturbation ?
Count me as one who is not bothered by trolls. I seem to inadvertantly miss most of the threads where they get banned anyway. I think the people who get labelled as trolls are merely immature social misfits crying out for attention, and we as a community just love to slap them down. As soon as we smell one, we harrass it to the point where the situation explodes. Mob dynamics. Lynching.
What does bother me enormously and is obviously no shared by the SDMB membership at large is personal harrassment. I used to see a lot more of it a few years ago, but one vestige remains. Desmostylus’s harrassment of ** Lib** is truly disgusting to me. Yet Desmostylus appears to be well liked . Oh well, to each his own I guess.
I don’t think those two are mutally exclusive, Daniel. People can learn a lot from war, both about their own values and the values of others. War is as often a fight over ideology as territory. And some wars, like some debates, are more civil than others. There are lots of motivations to debate. Some people debate just to show off their mental muscle, much in the manner that Bush just wanted to show off US military muscle. As for this…
I have no idea why you addressed that to me. Perhaps it was intended for other eyes.
Yes, but they can learn more from honest discussion. Deception in a discussion is a waste of time.
It was addressed to you because you appear to be defending the use of deception in great debates. I was simply saying that I’d rather it be forbidden more strictly.
Daniel
Well, a debate is a discussion, but not every discussion is a debate. GD is not GQ. There can be valid reasons to play devil’s advocate, conceal a point until it is timely, or flesh out an opponent knowing all the while that he is headed for a ditch. Are you saying you do not do these things?
Okay, but don’t kill the messenger. I neither condemned nor endorsed it, but merely pointed out that it takes place and that liar is an accepted ad hominem there. Even when I say that deception is a part of debate, it does not mean there should be license to deceive in any way for any purpose. That’s why I said it is more civilized than war.
On the rare occasion I play devil’s advocate, I do so with ample disclaimer so that other folks don’t get confused about what position I’m actually taking. Confusion benefits nobody, unless I’m trying to win instead of trying to understand.
Concealing a point until it’s timely isn’t, by itself, deceptive. We work within time around this universe, and we can’t make all points simultaneously; choosing an effective, persuasive order for our points isn’t the same as posting them in an order that deliberately leads people to a false conclusion. I will not do the latter.
Fleshing out an opponent, knowing they’re headed for a ditch? I’m not seeing how that’s deceptive.
Obviously not every discussion is a debate. That’s as uncontroversial as it is irrelevant.
No danger of that.
Daniel
We seem to have a lot of common ground. I agree that (in most cases) playing devil’s advocate should be disclaimed. I agree that confusion is not the sort of deception we should shoot for in a debate. I agree that timely concealment can be an effective debating technique. Regarding fleshing, it is deceptive because you are not revealing what you know to be true even as you lead the debate in that direction. You might, for example, pull him down the road of citing numbers of assaults in Bagdad, knowing that once he does, you intend to cite the numbers of assaults in New York City. This is different from ordinary concealment because you are actively guiding the course of discussion.
It can be if you want it to. I suppose that debate just for the sake of debate is, when one doesn’t necessarily even hold the position that he is arguing. Just out of curiousity, Liberal, is that the way you want it to be, or just the way that you percieve it as being? If that’s how you want it to be, why? What is gained?
That’s not the level of deceit I’m talking about; I wouldn’t call that deceit.
Daniel